


*Work in Progress*

by tobinlaughing



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, O2STK, Possible Spoilers, Spoilers, Unlikely Pairing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and ABC's The Middleman.</p>
<p>I have no idea where this is going, but Ida's involved, so I'm sure there will be some attempted hilarity ensuing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Interstate 76, somewhere between Toledo and Valparaiso, Indiana; Drive time

**Author's Note:**

> Events take place in a hazy in-between after IM3 but somehow before "The Armageddon Doomsday Apocalypse". There might be/probably will be spoilers present for both universes. Also I am terrible at naming these things.

_On Interstate 76, somewhere between Toledo and Valparaiso, Indiana  
Drive time_

Despite any and all efforts to air it out, to drive with the windows down or bathe the interior in Febreeze and Lysol, the SmartCar had yet to lose the faint and stubborn odor of fish. That’s the last time I let the Boss use my car to transport a flying pike, thought Wendy Watson for neither the first nor last time. 

She didn’t want to be on this trip. She didn’t want to be driving to and through and past Chicago; she didn’t want to be away from her illegal sublet loft or her friends for an indeterminate number of days; she didn’t think she needed to be spending this much quality “vacation-like time” with her boss, and she most certainly did not want to be scoping out potential threats to the highly secretive and incredibly elusive backing organization that fronted the Middleman Operation. As far as she was concerned, Wendy Watson, the Boss, and his thorny robotic assistant Ida were squarely and comfortably set up in middle America, and should stay that way: bigger heroes were required for bigger cities, and despite the absolute authority Wendy felt comfortable wielding on any given day—supplemented with her kick-ass lessons in kicking ass, provided by Sensei Ping, and the serious hardware she was packin', provided by the aforementioned elusive backing organization that fronted the Middleman Operation, Wendy did not feel like taking on a big city's-worth of Big and Bad.

_Bwub-bwub_ went the Middlewatch, and Wendy took one hand off the steering wheel to press the ‘answer’ button. Instantly the Boss’ face filled the watch’s face, although from a slightly stranger angle than normal: the Boss was driving separately on this trip. No doubt Wendy was looking at his Howdy-Doody-clean visage from somewhere around ten-and-two. 

“How’s the open road treating you, Dubbie?” the Middleman asked cheerfully. 

“Just fine, Boss. In fact, exactly the same as the forty-two other times you’ve called to ask how I’m doing.”

“Safety first, Dubbie! While I certainly don’t approve of talking on the phone while driving, the Middlewatch qualifies as a hands-free device, so I don’t regret checking up on you. We can’t have either of us falling asleep at the wheel. This is an important task we’ve been given to undertake and wrapping either of the Middlemobiles around a tree or a lamppost because one or the other of us dozed off would put this mission in quite a pickle.” 

“Don’t worry about me, Boss. Even if Sensei Ping hadn’t taught me the eighty-five meditations on the lotus blossom to keep my body focused and my mind alert, my dad taught me a whole bunch of inappropriate songs he used to sing to himself on long flights to keep himself awake.”

“Sensei Ping taught you the eighty-five lotus blossoms meditations to keep the body focused and the mind alert?” the Boss sounded both surprised and pleased. “He waited a year into my training to gift me with that knowledge!”

“What can I say, Boss? I guess I’m a charmer.”

“He was probably getting a contact high from being too long in the same room with you,” a voice sniped from outside the view screen, and Wendy made a face. Ida would be sitting next to the Boss, plugged into the portable HADAR they were hauling in the backseat of his Middlemobile. 

“Have you done nothing but think up pot-smoking jokes for the duration of this trip, Ida?” Wendy snapped. 

“Getting cranky, honey-buns? Is the buzz wearing off, or are you just getting the munchies somethin’ fierce?”

“Wendy, Ida has some updated information for us regarding the person or persons with whom we must make contact,” the Middleman broke in, as he usually did when Wendy and Ida started snarking at each other. “We should pull off at the next available exit to confer face-to-face. Besides, I need gas.”

“Again?” Wendy and Ida chimed together, and Wendy grinned. Her Middlemobile, a Smart Car, got 38 miles to the gallon, but her Boss’ ’78 Charger could only go a few hundred miles without needing to suck down some more petroleum. 

“Frequent stops on cross-country road trips allow us to stretch our legs, keep us from getting hypnotized by the monotony of the roadway, and give us opportunities to see areas of America we might otherwise miss had we taken the Middlejet or commercial air transportation,” the Boss said, as always, sounding like he was quoting from some manual or brochure. Which wasn’t entirely impossible, Wendy reflected: a former Navy Seal with a photographic memory, she wouldn’t put memorized recitation above one of her Boss’ resume-worthy applicable skills. 

“There’s a filling station and a truck stop at the next exit, eight-point-one-five-two miles ahead,” Ida announced, and this time there was no sarcasm, snark, rudeness, or snippiness in her voice—by which Wendy could tell she was in HADAR-search mode, if only for the few seconds it would take to find out whatever she needed to know. HADAR was like Google, only on steroids; like Yahoo, only on speed, and like Lexus-Nexus, only much, much friendlier, even with Ida at the helm. And that was saying something. 

“Filling station and truck stop, got it,” Wendy said, eyeing the upcoming road sign that said basically the same thing. Ah, technology. 

“And you might want to take that opportunity to change into uniform, Dubbie,” the Boss put in, changing lanes behind her so that she could pull into the right lane in front of him. They were driving caravan-style, as the Middleman called it, which was kind of a reverse following technique that made it very easy for Wendy to change lanes but impossible to drive faster than nine miles an hour over the speed limit—the fastest the Boss would go. The reminder about the uniform also put Wendy back into the funk she’d been driving in for most of the day: the funk of a child who knows that she has to sit still and b-e-h-a-v-e at Grandma's house, lest she upset a mothball-smelling old woman; the funk of a pet who doesn’t want to let the little kids from down the street pull her ears, tail and fur, but must, lest the neighbors think her a hypertense guard dog; the funk of, well, an entry-level employee whose boss hasn’t said thing one about overtime, hazard pay, travel reimbursement, or even tracking mileage. Being the Middleman's sidekick certainly paid better now that she'd passed her term of probation and training by Sensei Ping, but Wendy still had the idea that all these Peruvian flying pike, energy-drink-trout zombies, and gemstone-chewing aliens should warrant her a little boost in her paycheck, if nothing else. 

“Uniform….got it.” Wendy saw the Middleman’s wide, wholesome, dairy-loving grin before he clicked his own Middlewatch off. She tried, for the eighth or ninth time on this drive, to feel optimistic about operating in a new city, but the good vibes just weren't coming: she had to clamp down, once again, on the feeling she and her boss (and, she sighed inwardly, Ida) were moving in on someone else's territory. She'd caught snatches, once or twice, of Ida or the Boss saying something about “other teams” or other “specialists” who dealt with their kind of trouble, but on a larger scale. The Boss assured her he was the only Middleman, and she the only Middleman-in-training, across the globe, but their kind of trouble (problems across the infra, extra, and juxta-terrestrial spectrum) shouldn't limit itself to mid-sized towns like the one in which Middleman HQ was located. And O2STK couldn't just be keeping its secrets and itself from the Midddleman. They had to be big enough and secret enough to be hiding from other people, too.

 

At the rest stop, Wendy used the remarkably clean bathroom to change into her Middleman uniform: black pants and tie, white shirt, sensible shoes, and olive-green Eisenhower jacket. She sighed, wishing for something a little more jazzy, but she didn’t think the Middleman would take her seriously if she kept pressing the issue about new uniforms. ..if he took her seriously at all on anything…

“Fatty snacks will slow your metabolism and make you feel sleepy,” the Boss said at her shoulder, as Wendy halfheartedly perused the cheese-product-dusted offerings of the filing station. She glared at him and grabbed a bag of trail mix to go with her giant soda (the trail mix had m&ms in it, so she felt a little better about the raisins and cashews she’d be chewing for the next four hours or so). 

“Boss, one thing I’m still hesitant about,” Wendy said as he finished topping off his gas tank. She took a huge gulp of soda while he screwed in the gas cap. “These folks we’re going after, they haven’t actually done anything yet, right? And O2STK isn't actually sure they're going to do anything bad? And yet we're still driving. Why undertake a twelve-hour roadtrip if you don’t know you’re gonna get the payoff at the end?”

“First of all, Dubbie, you must remember Paragraph Number Six, section Tango-Foxtrot Niner of the Middleman Handbook: _Orders which proceed direct from the parent organization, hereafter referred to as O2STK, a.k.a the Organization Too Secret To Know, must be followed with all possible and plausible speed and efficiency and take precedence over any and all preceeding orders_.” He uncapped his own drink—a large bottle of plain milk—and took a large drink before continuing. “Second, by all reports, these folks are just a fisherman's inch from perpetrating a juxtaterrestrial event.” He looked sidelong at her, and Wendy had to smile: she secretly appreciated his euphemistic turns of phrase, although she'd definitely give him the mickey for them later. They'd come a long way, she reflected, from the spiky science-lab intern who'd snarked at him for ruining her temp gig that had already been ruined by a tentacle monster made of eyes, lips, and buttocks; the Middleman had turned up, blasted the monster, and blown up the lab she’d been working in. Becoming his sidekick had been a rather forced career move.

“So how come we're going after these people, anyways? We're not recruiting for O2STK, are we?”

“From what Ida has told me, Dubbie, these folks are already gainfully employed in a similar manner and are not shortlisted to join our organization.”

” 'A similar manner'? I thought there could only ever be one Middleman. Well, one and an apprentice. Kind of like the Sith, you know? Only less facepaint and anger…and fewer lightsabers,” she added with a kind of sad sigh. 

“There’s only ever one Middleman, that's true, but that doesn't mean that we're the only strange-crime-fighting organization that O2STK supports. There was a separate outfit in Chicago for many years; it was shut down in the 1970s because its agents kept having to travel to other locations to put down intraterrestrial events, but there was hardly ever anything large-scale and local.”

“I thought there was tons of crime in Chicago!”

“Sadly, there is, but it’s not the kind we deal with. Most of the time it’s ordinary humans perpetrating ordinary human violence. Very little by way of space aliens, warlocks, or underworld rumblings in Illinois, although they do occasionally have perfectly natural low-grade earthquakes.”

“So why scope out these folks now?”

“The recent events in New Mexico, New York, and elsewhere are making O2STK a little nervous. Alliances need to be reforged, Dubbie, and oaths pledged anew; O2STK is of the opinion that these kinds of events are going to continue to be more frequent and widespread in the coming months, possibly years.” He took another swig of milk, this time pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to carefully dot away the milk mustache that was left behind.

“So you and I aren’t being replaced?”

“Replaced? Great big sea, Dubbie, of course not! Is that what’s had you in such a foul mood since we left HQ?” When Wendy nodded, he only shook his head and smiled a little. “Ah, Dubster, you and I are doing very well in our own sphere of influence. We’re helping out the Organization by doing recon and passing along information. Neither your job nor mine are in danger, not in the least.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Wendy said, and the Middleman could tell she was, in fact, genuinely relieved. He slung a companionable arm around her shoulders. “Besides, I don’t know what I’d tell Lacey if I had to say there was a chance the two of you wouldn’t be randomly running into each other ever again.” She smiled widely as her Boss blushed: his and Lacey’s mutual crush had, once upon a time, been a thorny problem on their missions, but most other times it was just a gentle heartache between the two of them. Wendy still teased him about the crush-that-had-been from time to time. It was a delicate thing; her BFF Lacey had no problem expressing her deep and abiding interest in Wendy's as-yet mysterious and admittedly handsome boss, but he had the tendency to be slightly less open about his feelings and could react to teasing like a twelve-year-old boy sometimes. . 

“Come on, meat-sacks, we gotta get back on the road!” Ida yelled from the Boss’ Middlemobile, obviously not caring—or else enjoying—that other patrons of the gas station stared at them. The Middleman coughed and straightened his jacket before chugging the rest of his jug of milk and tossing the bottle in the nearest trash can. Wendy returned to her mini-Middlemobile, started the engine, and pulled out, headed back towards the interstate; the other Middlemobile swung itself in line behind her, and they continued on towards Chicago.

_Bwub-bwub_ went the Middlewatch again, about an hour later. “I’m surprised at you, Dubbie,” the Boss said, after she’d turned down the radio and answered.

“Surprised how? You know I can’t ignore the Middlewatch.” Protocol, protocol, she sighed internally.

“You mentioned lightsabers back at the gas station, but didn’t pursue the subject. I’d have thought you would have assumed we’d have them.”

“Is it safe to assume we have them?” Wendy asked, beginning to get excited. Lightsabers? Really? Sure, they’d used phase-polaron cannons and the HADAR’s shrink-ray on missions before, but real lightsabers?...!

“Always remember, Dubbie, that while a Middleman must expect the worst and perform at his or her best for every mission, they can count on everything else from the Organization.”

“Does that mean we have lightsabers??”

“Eyes on the road, Dubbie.” The Boss smiled his Captain-America grin and clicked off. Wendy groaned.


	2. Adjoining fifth-floor hotel rooms in a modest, three-star hotel Somewhere in the Chicago suburbs; 1524 hours

_Adjoining fifth-floor hotel rooms in a modest, three-star hotel_

_Somewhere in the Chicago suburbs_

_1524 hours_

 Tyler called on her regular cell just as they pulled into the hotel parking lot, so Wendy let the Boss handle the room arrangements while she filled him in on the details of the drive. The lack of excitement worked to her advantage; she didn't have to make up anything too far off the truth to cover her real purpose in being in Chicago. She synched her bluetooth to the phone so she could assist Ida and the Boss in hauling Ida's support equipment up to the room she'd inhabit with the Boss; Wendy was almost ecstatic—though still on the phone, so subduedly-so—to learn she'd have the adjoining room to herself. As she unzipped her suitcase, a piece of paper slipped under the adjoining door:

 “ _Dear Wendy: Driving always leaves me a bit wired, so I have stepped down the street to find a coffee shop and stretch my legs a bit. Hail me on the Middlewatch if there is anything you would like me to bring back to you. Sincerely, the Middleman (Boss)”._ Wendy shook her head: most people would have used five words on a post-it note, not a full business-style letter with proper punctuation and spelling. 

Tyler’s call was almost immediately followed by a call from Lacey, who wanted Wendy to know that she was missed in the illegal loft sublet they shared but that Lacey was not taking the time alone for granted. She ran down the list of planned activities for the weekend, most of them involving wearing Wendy's clothes, getting paint on them, and throwing a glowstick-rave-slash-vodka-orgy in Wendy's room. Grinning as she hung up, Wendy decided to peek into the Boss’ room to see what his ruminations at the coffee shop had produced—and to see what the Boss was like, hyped up on caffeine. 

 “He’s not back yet, Peaches,” Ida commented when Wendy stuck her head through the adjoining door. “Why don’t you go ahead and lighten that load of happy grass in your knapsack while you wait for him? I’m sure the management has smelled worse from guests your age.”

“You know, Ida, I’ve never even inhaled,” Wendy snapped.

 “Oh, sure you haven’t. And Elvis isn’t flipping burgers at a diner outside of Minneapolis.”

 “Listen, you walking toaster—wait, what? Elvis? Diner?”

 “Cool your jets, punkin.” The HADAR levitated off Ida’s permacurled head. “Here, I got some visuals on the folks you'll be tailing. I'm sure the Boss will want to divvy them up, there's a few of these sad sacks for you to take a look at.” The wireless printer on the desk behind her chimed, and a handful of black-and-white photos scrolled out. 

 “These aren't bad, for traffic-cam hacks,” Wendy observed, leafing through the pile; the images were surprisingly clear and gave a lot of detail to the faces and bodies of the apparently all-male quartet they'd be keeping their eyes on.

“Real-Time Situational Recording,” Ida clarified. “Don't leave home without it.”

 “Damn, are you sure these are the bad guys? Cuz if not, I definitely call Hottie Number One here for my team. Oooh, and Hottie Number Three.”  
  
“Selective morality, is it, sugar? Didn't I just overhear your incredibly giggly and predictably flity phone conversation with the so-called love of your life just a minute ago?”

 “Jeez, Ida, they have 1-900 numbers for that kind of thing. Quit getting your rocks off on my relationship, willya? And besides, Tyler's ok with me looking. He knows he's the only one I'm going to come home to. It goes both ways.”

 “Oh goody, more for me. I'll take Hotties Number One through Four back, if you don't mind.” Ida held out her hand. 

 “Hang on, I'm still getting details.” Wendy gazed at the collection of photos before her for a moment, then sighed and noticed she'd been biting the knuckle on her index finger. Ida, of course, had noticed too. 

 “You meat-puppets and your obsession with sex. I just don’t get it.”  
  
”Is that why you’ve got surveillance cameras in my bedroom? You’re trying to ‘understand’?” Wendy demanded. 

 “Hey, all you gotta do is invoke the protocol. Code Eighty-six, that’s all you gotta do, and you can stop trying to hide your Middlewatch under a bunch of those woven-hemp hippie pillows of yours. Not like the Middlewatch is usually thwarted by a little fabric and some stuffing…”

 “You know what, Ida? I’m gonna stuff my fist down your—“

  _Bwup-Bwup!_ The Middlewatch rang, and with a final smoldering glare at Ida, Wendy answered the alert. Five and a half minutes later (after touching up her makeup, reassembling her Middlegun—which she hadn’t _quite_ finished cleaning—stuffing everything back into her utility belt, re-tying her tie, shrugging back into her vest and, finally, a ninety-second search for her left shoe), she was on her way to the corner coffee shop to meet the Boss. 

 


	3. Stark Industries/Avengers Tower, New York City' Three minutes after a certain genuis' plans go kablooey

_tark Industries/Avengers Tower, New York City'_

_Three minutes after a certain genuis' plans go kablooey_

“<< _sss{{{SS{{_ _ **STAAAARK**_ _}}AAARK}}}aaark_ >>!!!!”

 

Thor usually didn't yell when he was in residence at the Tower. Well aware of what the godlike power of his voice could do to innocent bystanders, glassware, and those with dodgy tickers, the Asgardian prince was careful to keep his vocalizations to what Jane referred to as “non-smashy levels”. Stark, Dr Foster mused, must have really screwed the pooch on something this time. She waited till her screens stopped flickering, then went back to the ruthless highlighting of data ranges, barely clearing the inputs from the first hour of the day before the Tower's Most Wanted Man slunk into the lab and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to cram himself under Dr Banner's computer desk.

 

“Tony...” Banner groaned, pushing his chair back despite himself to give Tony more room in his desperate wiggling and tucking-in of limbs.

 

“I am not here, you understand? Not here at all. Out for a walk or a flight. Testing the Hulkbuster. He's scared of the Hulkbuster, right? No? Really? No, I'm in Malibu. Tell him it's Pepper's birthday and I'm in Malibu. Pepper wanted me in Malibu and it's her birthday so that's where I am..”

 

“It's not _actually_ Pepper's birthday, is it?” Bruce asked, causing Tony to stop cramming himself under the computer terminal for a moment to think.

 

“Nope, her birthday's in April.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I'm sure. Are these your shoes?”

 

Bruce swiped them out of Tony's extended hand, which was then quickly pulled back under the desk—just in time, too, as the God of Thunder stormed down the hall and into the lab. Bruce and Jane's computer terminals instantly started to snap and buzz: Thor had Mjulnir in hand and the hammer was crackling with angry energy. “Where—is—Stark?” Thor growled. Bruce felt the roll of his voice in the pit of his stomach and clamped down on the instinctive fear that followed, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth to keep himself calm.

 

“ _You_ are going to calm down before you blow every piece of equipment we have in here,” Jane stated flatly, locking eyes with her godly lover and staring him down over the stacks of printouts on her desk. Even in his righteous anger Thor knew what side his bed was made on, and Bruce gave thanks—not for the first time—that Jane's force of will was at least a match for his. The lightning playing around Mjulnir's handle subsided, and as he set the hammer on the floor Bruce's screens slowly oscillated back to normal. Seeing this, Jane softened her tone. “What's the matter, Thor? What did Stark do this time?”

 

“He has stocked the training rooms with weapons powered by the Tesseract,” Thor rumbled, “or at least, by something that so closely resembles it that even I cannot tell the difference. Which leads me to wonder, Stark, _where in the Nine Realms you came by this kind of power, eh?”_ Thor ended shouting at the ceiling tiles, rattling them in their frames. 

 

“That's an excellent question,” Bruce replied when the echoes had rolled away, more than a little rumbly himself. He kneed the lump of man under his desk, not caring if he got a shoulder or the side of a skull with his patella. “Where the hell would someone come up with that stuff when we know the Tesseract is safely back in Asgard?”

 

“Ow. Ow! It's not—ow! Jeez, Banner, your knees are like doorknobs!” Stark protested, falling out of his carefully-contained crouch. “Eat a sandwich, willya?” Stark stood and dusted off his pants, as if daring Thor to follow through on his attitude of serious bodily harm. Thor stood his ground, though Mjulnir glowed briefly. Tony risked looking him in the face. “They're not Tesseract weapons; they're powered by the same element as this,” and he tapped the miniature arc reactor—the same one taken from his chest after the Clean Slate protocol—that sat on his own little-used computer desk. “High-output, low-consumption clean energy source. I just—juiced it a little bit.”  
  
“Where'd the weapons come from?” Bruce demanded in the low rumble that Jane thought of as his “yellow-light” voice. It usually meant he was keeping his iron grip on the Other Guy steady, but maybe not by much. 

 

“I raided the Helicarrier. Those crates Cap found? HYDRA weapons built to run on Tesseract energy. I made sure they got back here after the reconstruction. A certain Agent Hill wasn't so keen on seeing them sitting on the giant Eye in the Sky, either, after all the potential crashing it could have done--”  
  
“I thought Stark Industries was done with weapons.”

 

“Well, I didn't make them, did I?” Tony rubbed his palms on his pant legs. “I was gonna install a new training program for some of our heavy hitters here. It was,” he dared to glare at Thor, “ _supposed_ to be a surprise.”

 

“New training program,” Thor repeated dubiously.

 

“Yeah. Well, hey, weren't _you_ the one who said you'd run through every program I put in there? And JARVIS reported you passed 'em all with flying colors. So I thought, hey...” he trailed off, then tried to rally for the finish. “...why not give 'em a real challenge? Right?”

 

“Stark, you need a new project.” Jane declared flatly. “Don't you have some thing with the Boy Scouts you could be concentrating on instead? Or another arc-reactor tower to put up?”  
  
“I have a hard time believing Steve or Natasha, or even Barton, would be ok with this,” Banner put in, although more gently than the other two might have. Automatically siding with the underdog, he thought to himself with a little bit of resignation. Yet another benefit to the Other Guy's squishies-sensitivity training. 

 

“They didn't—It was supposed to be a _surprise_ and I hadn't told them yet,” Tony stated, throwing his hands out in a gesture that was almost surrender, or as close as Tony Stark might come to it. Bruce hit 'save' on his programs and slid his stocking feet back into his loafers, standing with a sigh. 

 

“Thor, I'm going with Tony to make sure the new ….modifications to the training program are removed _until everyone on the team is made aware of their potential,_ ” Bruce raised his voice to cover Tony's protests. “Will you stand down if we take them out of there?”

 

Mjulnir seemed to settle more heavily into the floor as Thor nodded, taking another step towards Jane's workstation. Bruce placed a hand between Tony's shoulders and steered him out of the room with more than a little force. Jane was right: Tony needed a new construction project to keep him from doing...well, stuff like this. Bruce had gotten into the BBC's _Sherlock_ over the summer and saw some definite parallels between the updated Sherlock Holmes' reactions to boredom and those of his erstwhile science bro. When Tony had no outward pressures, he turned in on his creations, tweaking and modifying until even he couldn't think of anything else to do with them; he needed outside pressure to get him fountaining up new ideas again. Prototypes were invariably less dangerous to have around...until Tony went back into tweaking-mechanic mode.

 

Prior to this, he'd been going around, giving all of the coffemakers in the Tower 'upgrades'. Some basic models now had nice new additions like milk steamers and single-cup brewing options. Others had blown up or melted down. One had caught fire and caused the evacuation of the top six floors of the Tower, thus engendering more ill-will from the other Avengers because the top six floors was where their sleeping quarters were located. Previous upgrades to the Stark Industries company car alarm systems had locked each and every employee out of the vehicles, except Tony himself, who simply forgot to share the new keycodes with the drivers. 

 

“I swear, dude, he was about to obliterate you,” Bruce pointed out once they were safely in the elevator. Tony failed to stop looking glum.

 

“if he was mad about the training room,” the inventor sighed, “he's going to be furious when he sees what I did in the common room kitchen.”

 

 


	4. The Common Room Kitchen, Avengers Tower, about 30 seconds later

The Common Room, Avengers Tower

About four and a half minutes earlier, PMT

 

Nerves singing with the post-workout rush, Barton electric-slid into the kitchen, improvising the latest lyrics to his personal theme song, which he had tentatively titled "It's Awesome Being Me"--

_Split down the middle_

_We call it the Robin Hood shot_

_Kate can't do it yet_

_But I did five in a row, oh yeah--_

 

Thus far, "It's Awesome Being Me" was made up of about 50% catchy strings of "uh uh uh, ooohh yeah!" and another 25% of pure body english. The rest didn't really rhyme or stick to a discernable rhythm or melody, but Barton felt, deep in his white-boy soul, that there was a hit lurking in the tune. Somewhere. 

 

_Gonna grab a sandwich, uh uh uh_

_Gonna be the best sandwich ever, oh yeah_

_Wonder if we got any pickles, uh uh uh_

_Maybe Steve left me some spicy mayo after his last marathon stuff his face session like he does every Tuesday, baaaaayyyy-beh! Not just Tuesday!_

 

"Agent Barton, I'm sorry to interrupt--"  
  
"Jaaaaaa--har-har-har-viiiis!" Clint gave way to a spontaneous electric guitar solo, and the crowd went wild.

"Sir, might I suggest that you avoid the kitchen on this level until further notice? Mr. Stark has been running some experiments--"

Clint could feel his rockstar mojo starting to die, and frowned, sitting on an ottoman to remove his boots. "What? What kind of experiments?"

"The first, sir, was to replace the power source in the microwave with the same element as is used in the arc reactors. Results from the initial experiments were mixed."  
  
"I see....well, I guess the safe thing to do would be to just order out, wouldn't it?"  
  
"Shall I phone D'Amicos, sir?"

"Do that, JARVIS, and thank you. Make sure you charge Tony's account for it."

"Of course sir. I have several messages here for you from Deputy Director Hill; would you like to review them now, or after your meal arrives?"

"Don' wanna spoil the pizza. Hand 'em over," Barton picked up one of the ubiquitous StarkPads that seemed to multiply on the countertop: whenever Clint set one down, there seemed to be three new ones there next time he picked it up. The screen glowed with a series of emails from Hill, and reading them, Barton groaned. "JARVIS," he said, grudgingly, "will you find Nat for me, please? Ask her to come down here; we have orders."

"Yes, sir. Shall I cancel the pizza?"

"Nah. It's not 'drop everything and leave now' orders."

 

The pizza and Natasha Romanov arrived together; literally, as she'd intercepted the delivery guy at the elevator, tipped him, and escorted the pie in herself. She and her partner sat at the counter, stretching cheese and picking at pepperonis, while he brooded over their new assignment.

"Lighten up. You like Chicago."

"So? We just got back from Madripoor, Tash. Darcy's on spring break next week, and I haven't seen her since Thanksgiving. Now I'm gonna miss her by days and I can't ask Hill to fly her out to Chicago with me."

"Why not? It's just a ret/recon; I don't see what problem Hill would have with Darcy being there."

"We had a little chat last time about me abusing resources. Apparently I can have the R&D guys repair any of my trick arrows at all hours of the night for as long as it takes, but putting Darcy on a flight is 'wasteful'."

"So who are we reconning?"

"This....pair," Barton slid the tablet across the countertop and reached for another slice. A photo popped up, showing a smartly-dressed young couple in coordinating olive-drab jackets, almost like a his-and-hers uniform. Must've been a photoshoot for something, because the pair was posed back-to-back, holding improbably-shaped weapons.

"Actors?"

"Data says no," Barton reached over to scroll through the photos with a greasy finger. "Freelance PIs or something. We're supposed to find out exactly who and what they are. Apparently," he dropped his voice conspiratorially, "this comes down from the Council, and not from Fury."

"Don't start that, Clint," Nat rolled her eyes, wiping her hands on a napkin and toggling back to the written orders on the tablet.

"What? What did I start?"

"You're such a gossipmonger. Not everything's drama. Orders are orders, and they come from SHIELD, no matter who the mouthpiece is, Fury or the COuncil."

"Yeah, but--"

"Nope nope nope. I'm not going to speculate in circles with you, not this time."  
  
"Who said anything about speculating? I just--" And then Nat's tone of voice and deliberate disinterest caught up to him, and Clint leaned across the countertop. "You know one of them, don't you?"

"Barton--"

"Nat! Come on. We've been partners for how long now? You barely looked at that photo of the pair of them. Who do you know?"

Nat sighed. "The man. When I knew him he was a Navy SEAL and more than a little tough to work with. Rougher around the edges than you. Hell of a mouth, too. Looks like he's cleaned up a little, but if he's gone in for PI work I can only imagine the kind of shit he's been able to get away with. I might have you go out in front on this one, just so I don't have to deal with him."

 

"Name?"  
"Never got one. His team just called him 'boss'.

Clint raised an eyebrow at his partner, considering whether or not he wanted to ask the next question. Well, yeah, he wanted to, but his present career and future happiness as a rock-guitar god depended heavily on Nat not trying to break his fingers. But what was life without risk?

"And did you guys, you and he, did you ever--"

"Jesus H. Barton, you're terrible." No fingers broken, but Nat did snatch the last slice. "Give me a little credit for some taste, ok?"

 


End file.
